Order of Hermes

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The Order of Hermes are the closest you will get to the stereotypical Wizard in Mage: The Ascension. And for good reason, since they literally shaped the western idea of Magic, with all the trappings of such (including the pedantry, arrogance, and haughtiness). They're infamously disciplinarian and rigid in structure, with several "Houses" fighting for control. They, unsurprisingly, tend to fuck up quite a bit. This includes when what would become the Tremere Vampires split off from them, and how they essentially forced the Technocracy into existence by being top dog for so long.

A lot of the terminology and paradigm for the Order, specifically that Man has a spark of the divine with in him, is ripped word-for-word from Ars Magica, which may or may not share a universe with the World of Darkness, depending on the edition you're playing.

History

The Order of Hermes has it's roots deep in the heart of Ancient Egypt, from the invention of heiroglyphs and of writing. People were huge on the power of True Names back then, and the idea that you could in fact take those names, grab them from the ether, and then write them down was a kind of magic all it's own, and because they all believed it, it worked. This helped to create the first and greatest Mages as we understand them, according to the Hermetics, who kept ancient society going for as long as they could, all for their kings and for their gods, all the way up until Ancient Greek times, where all but two of those great mages names became lost to history, but boy what a pair they ended up being: the Biblical Solomon, who in their teachings is the greatest pioneer of summoning magic and a breakthrough artist in Goetic works...and Hermes Trismegistus; the man who created the hermetic foundational document known as the Corpus Hermeticum; which was the annotated guide on how to do all the crazy shit that these mages were capable of. The first group to attempt to understand magic through these terms in a wellspring of mystical thought was the Cult of Mercury, a fucking enormous group of Roman Mages who spent all their time trying to keep the empire from collapse. Once it began to collapse due to things outside of the Cult's control (namely the fact that they were unbelievably spread out) the Cult disappeared into the mists of time as little more than disparate mystics across Europe, but not before leaving a lot of written work behind that enterprising mages in the future could use.

The Dark Ages meant the end of unity for these Hermetic predecessors, but it did allow for quite a good many Mages to expand their horizons and learn without the problematic issue of "keeping Rome alive" cutting into study time, and often began to take inspiration and ideas from the Verbenae and the burgeoning Choir in order to improve their arts. It wasn't all sunshine and roses during this time of freedom; while Mages were allowed to become extremely important in their local communities; they began to gain tons of political power and enormous, monstrous egos. Further, the Mages of this time got into a lot of fights over basically nothing because they were effectively landed lords in a lot of cases, and those fights got brutal in a big damn hurry, turning learned men into little more than thugs with a spellbook, and going out and away from their Covenants effectively meant getting mugged by magic at any moment.

The Order of Hermes as it is understood now comes to be in the 700's, as two major figures of their work; Bonisagus and Trianoma. Both were fed up with the idea of being afraid to go outside to get rotten mutton and eggs, and so gathered a great many of the best mages of the day, 12 in total, and gave themselves a code of conduct, a united Reality Paradigm, and a symbol of which to unite them. Given that most of them were Mercurian Cultists before, they naturally chose the Order of Hermes, and set about basically strong-arming pretty much every last mage in Europe into joining and agreeing with their new tenets, or just zapping them if they refused. This unifying action came right in the knick of time, because the Order of Reason had shown up and were looking to finally kick some sense into these asshole Wizards and so they spent a good long time trying very hard to avoid the nascent Technocracy and the opportunistic Choir. But with unity, came a number of the major concepts that most traditions to this day still pay some lip service to, such as the Theory of the Nine Spheres and whatnot.

From then on, the Hermetics spent pretty much every intervening age either trying to consolidate themselves, strengthen their paradigm, gather Ancient Hermetic knowledge that's been lost to the ages, and dealing with many of their wayward houses joining other Traditions; or outright incursions from within from factions such as the Tremere. They also spent a long time basically joining any colonialist or imperialist group that popped up from the Renaissance onwards in hopes of either expanding the influence of the occult or gaining resources to go gather such knowledge, up to and including a lot of Hermetics joining the Nazis. In the modern era, Hermetics have either tried to expand their influence through the internet or Sleeper secret societies, or have actively chosen to become detached to reality and throw themselves into their learning and gathering, becoming the stereotypical deranged wizards of lore.

Hermetic Beurocracy

Due to years of hard-fought knowledge and the hilariously arrogant idea of WE WUZ KANGS being a central tenet of their philosophy, the Order of Hermes are seemingly obsessed with being the most rigidly organized of all traditions, thanks to centuries of their use becoming less an easy way to identify a superior and more a way to organize their myriad houses and make them feel like they're in charge of their own little kingdoms.

All are subject to a long creed known as the Code of Hermes, which governs most of their actions and demands that knowledge returns to the Hermetics if found, that you will gain apprentices, and that you will be an ally to the Order even if you don't like the other Houses, don't peek on what other Mages are doing, and don't fuck things up by drawing unwanted attention. After that, a prospective Mage, usually pulled from the ranks of traditional academia, is dropped straight into their byzantine politics by way of their Master. All Hermetics at one point had a single master who drops the mother of all college courses in Hermetic magic straight down on their heads without pity or remorse for what transpires, and gets the Neophyte ready for the unforgiving and often extremely unfair life of a Mage. The intent of this is to make an Awakening an extremely gradual process rather than a single defining moment.

Ranks of Wizardry

The Order's understanding of heirarchy is packed in deep by choice, and goes through a number of degrees that can be boiled down as such:

• 1st through 3rd Degrees: Neophyte, Zelator, and Practicus: The bitch boy. You get browbeaten, forced to study for long hours and get yelled at for being a fuckup until you Awaken by getting the third degree. It is important to note that only after by gaining your first rank in Forces that you actively leave the "get me my coffee you sniveling ape of an apprentice" stage of your Hermetic training.
• 4th and 5th Degrees - The Initiates: 4th and 5th degree Hermetics are fully awakened and have a good understanding of the Hermetic ways of Magic, but are still very new to all this, and so do not escape occasionally being yelled at by their superiors, but they're Awakened and are therefor people in the eyes of the average Hermetic.
• 6th and 7th Degrees - The Adepts: It is by the 6th Degree (measured by your third rank in any Sphere) that you are generally expected to take on an Apprentice, and begin the time honored tradition of yelling at your Apprentice for breathing wrong. You've earned it.
• 8th and 9th Degrees - The Magisters: Those with mastery in any one sphere become Magisters, and generally are either running smaller Houses or are in the direct line of succession for one of the larger ones, and are probably tasked with the upkeep of their House' Horizon Realm and the conducting of research. These guys get to yell at the Adepts.
• 10th Degree - Oracleship: You've either ascended or have become so enlightened you are the ultimate wizard. As with most Traditions, if you're here, you're probably not interacting much with Earthly concerns at all and are personally trying to mug Reality itself for it's keys somewhere in an extradimensional chantry, and of course, you can now yell at everybody below you for being such a fucking casual.

Houses

As you can imagine, a globe spanning millennia-old conspiracy that has literally reality-warping levels of egotism as an entry requirement can get pretty out of control. Luckily, the Hermetic love politics and structure almost as much as they love magic itself. As a result, the House structure divides the Order into subfactions based on political interests and magical praxis.

Note that while the Order as a whole has a nominally unified Reality Paradigm, each house has its own body of theories and signature techniques. In addition, the Order has been around in some form or another since Imperial Rome, so Houses have been formed, merged, destroyed, divided, promoted or demoted countless times through the ages. There are currently 7 Major Houses.

Note that, depending on the Metaplot you're using, the Solificati, Ngoma, and Wu Lung Crafts may or may not have been absorbed and turned into Houses Solificati, Ngoma and Hong Lei, respectively.

Major Houses

- If the Order of Hermes are a real wizard's wizards, then House Bonisagus is a wizard's wizard's wizard. The wizardiest wizards to ever wizard. While the other Houses concern themselves with specific subsets of Hermetic lore or worldly interest, the Bonisagi work towards a unified and holistic understanding of the Art. They're predictably bookish, even by Hermetic standards and, depending on which Metaplot you use, currently reeling from the loss of all their ancient offworld libraries.

- House Flambeau, by stark contrast, cut out a lot of the more esoteric intellectual detritus from their Art, focusing instead on its applications in conflict. That's a very circlejerky way of saying FIREBALL! FIREBALL! FIREBALL! They act as the military arm of the Tradition and have pretty much never been politically unpopular as a result. Despite this, they naturally have a reputation for being hot headed (pun intended) and alarmingly cavalier about Sleeper fatalities in their offensives.

- One of the younger Major Houses, House Fortunae are the Order's numerologists, focusing on gematria, divine numbers, all that jazz. Despite the fairly dorky sounding elevator pitch, they're some of the Tradition's smoother operators, excelling at finance and gambling. This proclivity is largely responsible for their meteoric rise in power, making them an invaluable, if sometimes suspicious, resource.

- House Quaesitori is the Order's judges and, with the destruction of House Janissary, its internal police too. As you can tell by the number of splinter cells, double agents, and secret traitors in the order, they aren't actually all that great at their job. They are devoted to the ideal of justice, bless their hearts, but still throw a hissy fit when the Euthanatos try to do their job for them.

- House Shaea are Truenamers. Wait no, come back! Not that kind of Truenamer! They are specialists in the essential names of things, being experts in spirit binding and the mysticism of the ancient Egyptians, who believed that the name was an essential component of the soul. They're also disproportionately female, due to their links with the cult of Isis.

- House Tytalus focuses on the Awakened Will above all else, exalting hardship so as to train its adherents to better remake reality in their image. As you can imagine, this makes them come off as overbearingly machiavellian, even by Order standards. They were pretty much perpetually politically ascendant until a couple of their members decided to commit the ultimate betrayal of their ideology: subordinating their wills to some vampires, kicking off the Second Massasa War and severely wounding the House's reputation, because apparently Hermetics never learn their fucking lesson.

- The wondermakers and enchanters of the Order, poor House Verditius has a messy and tempestuous history. One of the founding Hermetic Houses, the Verditii provided much of the material wealth of the Order from their superlative craftsmanship. Unfortunate, it was also the incubator for the Hermetic heresy thay would grow into the Craftmasons, who went on to found the Order of Reason and, well... the rest is history. By the Industrial Revolution, the other Houses decided that their brand of "olde tyme master blacksmithe magicke" still resembled too much of their enemy's techniques for comfort and stripped them of their political power. It was only recently that the Lesser House emerged and combined with the shattered remnants of its spiritual successor, House Thig, that it regained its place among the Major Houses.

Lesser Houses

These houses are all broadly considered under the banner of House Ex Miscellanea, functionally the clearing house for all the Hermetic practices the Order didn't want to give full membership.

- House Criamon was one of the Order's founding Houses, specializing in enigmas, lowercase-p paradoxes, riddles, and unsolved mysteries. Their influence has declined pretty much constantly sonce their formation, culminating in their demotion after the Metaplot killed most of their Archmages. They tend to suffer from White Wolf Trickster Syndrome, which makes them equal parts twee, incomprehensible, and self-impressed in the fluff.

- House Jerbiton. Mundane relations and recruitment. They run the wizard DMV. They are, by definition, the closest to mundane and often put in charge of running front groups and mystery cults as a result.

- House Mernita deals specifically with faeries, an increasingly unrewarding task as the fae grow more and more secretive and rare.

- An odd duck, House Skopos focuses on the intersection of quantum physics and Hermetic practice. Through drugs. Because White Wolf. It also canonically has exactly three members, so that's weird.

- House Xaos is just Discordianism with a Hermetic membership card. They are not dissimilar to the Xaositects from Planescape, actually.

Former Houses

- Both House Bjornaer and House Diedne were various doomed attempts to incorporate less organized druidic practices (shapeshifting and general druidic craft) into the Hermetic Paradigm. Diedne fell particularly hard, as the rest of the Order launched a crusade against them for what were, by all accounts, some pretty fucked up rituals. Of course it may or may not have been a scapegoat for Tremere (that little shit). Whatever the case, the Verbena have literally never let go of a grudge, so they're still pretty salty about this.

- House Golo is notable for being probably the shortest-lived of all Houses, only existing for about 17 years. It all formed around this guy who got obsessed with an Arabian physics textbook called the Kitab al-Alacir, which he used to build magitek. Then his airship blew up and his followers scattered. Despite its short run, it was basically responsible for laying the groundwork for the modern day Sons of Ether. Go figure.

- Who watches the watchmen? Maybe someone should have asked that before the whole fucking debacle with House Janissary happened. They used to be the internal police and enforcers of the Order. Then some snoopy Euthanatos discovered that their roots could be traced back to an obscure assassin conspiracy called the Ksarifai... which just so happened to be a founding Convention of the Order of Reason. The Euthies accused the House of harboring secret Technocratic loyalties and smuggling intel to the New World Order. There's no canon answer as to whether or not this is actually true or if it was a power play by the Euthanatos. Whatever the case, the Council reacted with fire and bloodshed, scouring them from the face of the earth.

- House Luxor is not really elaborated on especially well. It was apparently the first predominantly black, American House. It seemed like it might have been something to do with syncretic blending of Victorian spiritualism, dimensional technology, and Charismatic Christianity, but that's mostly conjecture.

- House Mercere was around from the beginning as the designated messengers of the Order. Initially derided as mere gofers, the House slowly increased in power through its mastery of the information trade. As better mundane communication made its official function increasingly irrelevant, several info brokers jumped ship to the seedier parts of House Fortunae as Mercere fell apart in the 30's.

- House Tharsis had its heyday during the Age of Exploration. These weather wizards and pragmatic sailing techniques were the golden boys of the Order when the high seas were the biggest frontier of the Ascension War. Sadly, the House was gutted after its leaders infernalist leanings were revealed to the world.

- House Thig was the unholy lovechild of the Order and the Virtual Adepts, channeling their magic through modern tech and manipulating the wired world. While unpopular with the older crowd, they were still on their way up until the Revised Metaplot kicked them in the dick and forced them to merge with House Verditius.

- Learn more about those fuckers in House Tremere here.

- House Validas were big adherents of the "God the watchmaker" school of thought, and as such were pretty good at divination. They also turned out to be infernalists like Tharsus, so they got purged. They might actually still exist somewhere in England as an obsure Nephandi sect.

- House Zirach was the house that took over study of "Ars Cupidae", the Art of Desire. Predictably, the House was sitting pretty until someone found out that it was full of rapists and hellfire clubs, at which point it was purged.